A teenage soccer team and its coach have been found alive after being trapped for 9 days in a flooded cave in Thailand

Soldiers and rescue workers work in Tham Luang cave, as the search for the Under-16 soccer team and its coach closes in. Reuters

An Under-16 soccer team and coach have been found alive after being trapped in flooded Tham Luang cave for nine days.

Twelve members of the Thai soccer team were found showing "signs of life."

Twelve members of a Thai football team and their coach have been found showing 'signs of life' after being trapped for nine days in a flooded cave in Thailand.

The boys ventured into the Tham Luang Nang Non cave on Saturday 23 June but were trapped in the cave by torrential rain. A major search and rescue operation was launched to drain the cave and rescue them.

Thailand's provincial governor said this afternoon that all 12 boys and their coach had been found alive by Thailand's Navy SEAL divers.

"Thai Navy seals have found all 13 with signs of life," Governor Narongsak Osottanakorn told reporters.

Reuters

He added: "We found them safe. But the operation isn't over."

Navy divers and rescue workers entered a narrow passageway early on Monday after passing through a key chamber on Sunday where high, murky waters had previously blocked their progress.

Mr Narongsak said the passageway the divers made their way through goes upwards in some places and downwards in others and is extremely narrow, making it difficult for divers to fit through with all their gear.

In the course of their search they were repeatedly blocked by rising water that filled sections of the cave and forced them to withdraw for safety reasons.

When water levels dropped on Sunday, the divers went forward with a more methodical approach, deploying a rope line and extra oxygen supplies along the way.

Reuters

The navy divers' Facebook page said that since Sunday night, the divers had reached a bend where the half-mile passage splits in two directions.

The divers were aiming for a sandy chamber on higher ground in the cave, where they believed the group would be safe.

Public hopes for a rescue have been running high since Sunday, but officials avoided setting a timetable.

"In theory, human beings can last 30 days (without food)," Mr Narongsak told reporters while the search was still ongoing, before the team was found. "We hope and believe that is the case. We all still have hope."

He said at the time that it was expected that in their condition, the boys would at first not be able to move their limbs, but the plan was that medical teams would initially treat them in situ.

He said the diving team included doctors.

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